Festival's focus on DJs pays off with popular sets from Fatboy Slim and Mark Ronson as well as the Roots and Snoop Dogg
In a crowded festival market, Bestival has managed to carve out a unique identity over its 10-year lifespan. It has enough muscle to pull in huge names from the world of rock and pop – the last time Elton John played at a British festival, he'd yet to release Your Song – but uniquely devotes as much time on the main stage to DJs as live artists. It clearly knows its market: despite the best efforts of the Flaming Lips, whose singer Wayne Coyne carries a wand that belches out dry ice and, for reasons unknown, cradles a baby doll in his arms, and whose performance of Do You Realise? reduces at least one gentleman in the crowd to tears, Friday night on the main stage belongs to Fatboy Slim, playing not just his greatest hits, but Tina Turner's Simply the Best; while on Saturday afternoon, Mark Ronson and Radio One's Zane Lowe get as vociferous a reaction with a set of old hip-hop tracks as any band. Meanwhile, anyone looking for further evidence that dance music is currently the dominant musical force in Britain can cite what happens when Disclosure take to the Big Top stage: as at Glastonbury, not just the tent but the entire area around it comes to a total standstill, such is the size of the crowd attempting to get a look at them.
On Saturday, the Roots have the unenviable task of playing at exactly the same time as the festival's fancy dress parade. Having expanded their lineup to include a euphonium player (apparently called Tuba Gooding Jr, he makes the traditional festival journey from the stage to the crash barrier at the front of the audience, only to discover that clambering back on to a festival stage while carrying a euphonium is a trickier task than he evidently expected) their set is one long, seamless medley, that takes in not only their hits – You Got Me, The Seed – but a mind-boggling array of cover versions: Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love? and I'm a Man, Kool and the Gang's Jungle Boogie, the Incredible Bongo Band's version of the Shadows' Apache, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine. Franz Ferdinand perform covers too – midway through, as a sudden shower of rain starts, their set erupts into a version of Donna Summer's I Feel Love – but the real draw is their own material: it's a taut, exciting reminder of just how many hits their first couple of albums yielded.
A certain degree of intrigue attends Saturday night's headliner. He's billed on the posters as Snoop Dogg, but, as has been widely reported, he's recently converted to Rastafarianism and changed his name to Snoop Lion, purveyor of reggae songs about the benefits of a diet rich in fruit. He clearly can't just perform his latterday material during a headlining set at a festival – at least not without provoking the crowd into a potentially life-threatening stampede away from the main stage – but it's equally hard to see how he's going to square his gangsta rap past with his new-found religious beliefs. In the event, he doesn't bother – a solitary reggae track is swiftly dispatched in favour of what he describes as "motherfucking pimp music", evidence of a pragmatism that's audibly served him well throughout his career. The music behind his voice shifts from Dr Dre's to punishing EDM, by way of out-and-out pop, evidence of his ability to hop aboard any passing trend. Watching him dance about onstage with a man dressed as a cartoon dog, it's hard to imagine he ever created such moral panic among the tabloids that the Sun campaigned to have him denied entry to Britain. He looks less like a threat to the stability of society than a rather charming entertainer, and the crowd are accordingly entertained. Reported by guardian.co.uk 22 hours ago.
In a crowded festival market, Bestival has managed to carve out a unique identity over its 10-year lifespan. It has enough muscle to pull in huge names from the world of rock and pop – the last time Elton John played at a British festival, he'd yet to release Your Song – but uniquely devotes as much time on the main stage to DJs as live artists. It clearly knows its market: despite the best efforts of the Flaming Lips, whose singer Wayne Coyne carries a wand that belches out dry ice and, for reasons unknown, cradles a baby doll in his arms, and whose performance of Do You Realise? reduces at least one gentleman in the crowd to tears, Friday night on the main stage belongs to Fatboy Slim, playing not just his greatest hits, but Tina Turner's Simply the Best; while on Saturday afternoon, Mark Ronson and Radio One's Zane Lowe get as vociferous a reaction with a set of old hip-hop tracks as any band. Meanwhile, anyone looking for further evidence that dance music is currently the dominant musical force in Britain can cite what happens when Disclosure take to the Big Top stage: as at Glastonbury, not just the tent but the entire area around it comes to a total standstill, such is the size of the crowd attempting to get a look at them.
On Saturday, the Roots have the unenviable task of playing at exactly the same time as the festival's fancy dress parade. Having expanded their lineup to include a euphonium player (apparently called Tuba Gooding Jr, he makes the traditional festival journey from the stage to the crash barrier at the front of the audience, only to discover that clambering back on to a festival stage while carrying a euphonium is a trickier task than he evidently expected) their set is one long, seamless medley, that takes in not only their hits – You Got Me, The Seed – but a mind-boggling array of cover versions: Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love? and I'm a Man, Kool and the Gang's Jungle Boogie, the Incredible Bongo Band's version of the Shadows' Apache, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine. Franz Ferdinand perform covers too – midway through, as a sudden shower of rain starts, their set erupts into a version of Donna Summer's I Feel Love – but the real draw is their own material: it's a taut, exciting reminder of just how many hits their first couple of albums yielded.
A certain degree of intrigue attends Saturday night's headliner. He's billed on the posters as Snoop Dogg, but, as has been widely reported, he's recently converted to Rastafarianism and changed his name to Snoop Lion, purveyor of reggae songs about the benefits of a diet rich in fruit. He clearly can't just perform his latterday material during a headlining set at a festival – at least not without provoking the crowd into a potentially life-threatening stampede away from the main stage – but it's equally hard to see how he's going to square his gangsta rap past with his new-found religious beliefs. In the event, he doesn't bother – a solitary reggae track is swiftly dispatched in favour of what he describes as "motherfucking pimp music", evidence of a pragmatism that's audibly served him well throughout his career. The music behind his voice shifts from Dr Dre's to punishing EDM, by way of out-and-out pop, evidence of his ability to hop aboard any passing trend. Watching him dance about onstage with a man dressed as a cartoon dog, it's hard to imagine he ever created such moral panic among the tabloids that the Sun campaigned to have him denied entry to Britain. He looks less like a threat to the stability of society than a rather charming entertainer, and the crowd are accordingly entertained. Reported by guardian.co.uk 22 hours ago.